True Love and TOMATOES

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Finally, you must invest big bucks in high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps. Fluorescents or incandescent golamps even large banks of them - are too weak to grow tomatoes (we've tried many times). HIDs are arc lamps of two radiation values: metal halides make a blue light and are best for green plant growth. High-pressure sodium lamps are yellow and best for blooms and fruit. You can get them with the heavy ballast and glass-shielded metal housing they need to function safely ...from 175 watts able to sustain 4 square feet ($150) to thousand-watters able to light 100 square feet ($500). Light Manufacturing was the first to put one of each (400-watters) in a single reflector.

Tomato blossoms are self-fertile, but you must play buzzy bee and get pollen to egg for them. Use a small paintbrush or electric toothbrush to vibrate mature, open blossoms between 10 a.m. and noon each day. Then, keep nutrient solution topped up and lights on ten to 12 hours day, and wait for your hydroponic tomatoes to ripen.

After Frost

After a hard frost, pull poles and cut out wire fence circles, spread the compost out on the soil, and wait for a sprinkly fall day. With the 1/2"-bore garden hose ready to water down the borders, sprinkle the upwind edge of the tomato-plant leavings, corn stalks and other garden trash with kerosene, and fire it off to kill disease and bugs and turn the plant material into readily available ash for next year's crops. This century-old technique hasn't changed a jot.

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